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The Civil War Begins
Objective 3.02
Objective 3.02
• Analyze and assess the causes of the Civil
War.
Secession
• Lincoln wins election
of 1860, South
Carolina secedes on
December 20, 1860
• Confederate States of
America formed in
February, 1861
• SC, GA, FL, LA, MS,
AL, TX
Jefferson Davis
• Elected president of
the newly formed
Confederacy
• Former U.S.
Congressman from
Mississippi
Shots fired
• Fort Sumter (SC)
• Fort in Charleston
harbor
• In need of supplies
• “food for hungry men”
– who starts the war?
• South Carolinians fire
first shots
Lincoln calls for volunteers
• Lincoln’s calls for volunteers promoted
more Southern states to secede
Virginia
• Virginia’s secession on April 17, 1861 is
key – important state
Resources
• North had many advantages
– Factory production
– Railroads
– population
• South had good generals, military
tradition, and high motivation
Objective 3.03
• Identify political and military turning points
of the Civil War and assess their
significance to the outcome of the conflict.
Civil War Strategy
• Union had to conquer the South to win
• Southern strategy was mainly defensive
– (usually)
• How did Lincoln propose to do this?
Anaconda Plan
• Union’s three-part plan
• 1) blockade Southern ports (no exports or
imports
• 2) send Union boats up the Mississippi
River to control it and divide it in two
• 3) capture the Confederate capital at
Richmond, VA
Great Britain’s Help?
• Great Britain needed South’s cotton
• Could not get it because of Anaconda
Plan’s blockade
• Great Britain to help South?
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First Major Bloodshed
• (First Battle of) Bull Run (Manassas
Junction)– in Va., about 25 miles from
Washington, D.C. – July 21, 1861
• Both sides were inexperienced
• Both sides expected a short war and an
easy victory
First Bull Run (continued)
• Battle went back and
forth
• Confederates eventually
gained advantage
• Rallied around Thomas J.
“Stonewall” Jackson –
one of the South’s best
generals
– “There stands Jackson like
a stone wall!!”
First Bull Run (continued)
• Union began a panicky retreat to
Washington
First Bull Run (continued)
• Confederates too exhausted and
disorganized to give pursuit
• Many Southerners thought war was over
and went home
• Lincoln twice called for 500,000 volunteers
(to serve 3 years)
• Not going to be a quick war
Civil War Generals
•
•
•
•
Union
George McClellan
Ulysses S. Grant
William T. Sherman
• Confederacy
• Robert E. Lee
• Thomas J.
“Stonewall” Jackson
George McClellan
• Union general
• Given command of the
“Army of the Potomac”
after Bull Run
• Accused by Lincoln of
being too cautious/slow
• Fired by Lincoln after
Antietam
• Ran against Lincoln in
1864 election as a
Democrat for peace
Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson
• Instructor at VMI before
war
• His troops rallied the
South at Bull Run and
earned him the nickname
“Stonewall”
• One of South’s best
generals.
• Shot and killed by his
own sentries at
Chancellorsville – May,
1863
Robert E. Lee
• Became head of the
Army of Northern
Virginia after
Johnston’s death
• Defended Richmond
• Led until surrender at
Appomattox Court
House in April 1865
The Politics of War
• Would the South
receive any help?
• There was a
chance…
Great Britain to the Rescue?
• Why would they want
to help the South?
• To gain access to
Southern cotton.
Trent Affair
• Two Confederate diplomats (Mason and
Slidell) arrested by Union while aboard
British merchant ship
• Great Britain had declared neutrality.
– Very upset, almost at war with Union.
• Lincoln apologizes, tensions ease.
What about the cotton?
• Great Britain found
sources of cotton
– Had a huge cotton
inventory at the
outbreak of war
– Found new sources of
cotton in India and
Egypt
Lincoln’s views on slavery
• Lincoln did not think
that federal
government had
power to abolish
slavery where it
already existed.
• Thought slavery was
morally wrong and
wanted to stop its
extension into
territories.
Emancipation
• If federal gov’t couldn’t free slaves, what
could be done?
• Lincoln thought they could be freed as a
military maneuver
Emancipation Proclamation
• Issued Jan. 1, 1863
• Freed all slaves in the
states in rebellion
• Did nothing for the
slaves in the slave
states still in the
Union
• Did not free any
slaves immediately
Emancipation Proclamation
(continued)
• Military maneuver – slaves built
fortifications, grew food for the
Confederacy
• Discouraged Great Britain (an abolitionist
– thinking country) from supporting the
Confederacy
Effects of the Emancipation
Proclamation
• Gave the war a higher moral sense for
many in the North
• Drew protests from some Northern
Democrats
• Ended any chance of compromise with the
South
– Fight to the death
• Confederacy knew that if it lost its whole way of life
would be gone
Political Troubles in North and
South
• Both Lincoln and Davis faced opposition to
the war effort
• The week after Ft. Sumter, Lincoln
suspended the writ of habeas corpus in
Maryland
– Stated that a person arrested must be brought
to trial to determine why he or she is being
jailed
• Davis later did the same in the South
Constitutional?
• Taney says no
• Lincoln ignores him
Copperheads
• Lincoln’s main political opponents in North
were Copperheads – Northern Democrats
who favored peace with the South
– Led by Clement Vallandigham
Conscription
• Both sides eventually had to draft soldiers
to fight in the military
• Confederacy did it first in 1862
– Drafted all able-bodied white men between 18
and 35
• Union did it in 1863
– Drafted white men between 20 and 45
“Rich man’s war but a poor man’s
fight”
• In Confederacy, could hire substitutes to
cover your service
• Also did not have to serve if you owned 20
or more slaves
• In the North, you could also hire
substitutes or could pay a $300 fee to get
out of draft
• Many poorer people on both sides were
angered
Draft riots
• Summer of 1863 – New York City erupted
in violence
• Poorer people (especially Irish immigrants)
thought the war was unfair to them
• For four days mobs attacked antislavery
leaders, well-dressed men, and AfricanAmericans
• By end, over 100 deaths
Antietam (Sharpsburg)
• Mid-1862, Lee took
his army towards the
Union capital
• Crossed into
Maryland
Lucky McClellan
• A Union corporal found
Lee’s battle plans
wrapped around a cigar
box
• McClellan finally decides
to be aggressive
• Two armies fight to a
standoff
• Confederates retreat
• Bloodiest singly-day
battle in American history
Effects of Antietam
• No British help for South
• Lincoln issues Emancipation Proclamation
Gettysburg
• Turning point of the
Civil War
• July 1-3, 1863
• Union and
Confederate armies
class in Pennsylvania
Gettysburg (continued)
• Battle goes back and forth for two days
• Union Col. Chamberlain defends “Little
Round Top”
– Bayonet charge
3rd day
• General Lee orders General Pickett’s men
to attack center of Union lines
• Attacking uphill across 1 mile of open
ground
• Confederates turned back – “high water
mark” of the Confederacy
• Lee never again has sufficient numbers for
a Northern invasion
The Western Theater
• Vicksburg – very strategic city on the
Mississippi River
• Attacks failed
• Placed under siege by Gen. Ulysses S.
Grant
• Fell to Union control on July 4, 1863
• A few days later the Union gains control of
Mississippi River – part of Anaconda Plan
Vicksburg (continued)
• Vicksburg was another major turning point
in the war
Ulysses S. Grant
• Eventually became
commanding general
for the Union army
• Wins several victories
in the West
– Ft. Henry and Ft.
Donelson
– Vicksburg
• Wears down
Confederacy
Gettysburg Address
• “Four score and seven years ago…”
• November 1863 – ceremony held to
dedicate cemetery at Gettysburg
• Lincoln – not featured speaker – makes
two minute speech
– Says that Union needs to ensure that dead
did not die in vain
A War of Attrition
• With Grant in charge, the Civil War
becomes a war of attrition
– The North tried to wear down the South
• Grant decided to take the war to Southern
civilians as well as the army
• Confederate morale drops
Grant appoints Sherman
• Grant appointed William Tecumseh
Sherman as commander of the military
division of Mississippi
• Sherman and Grant begin total war –
breaking the will of the South and its ability
to make war
Grant the “Butcher”?????
• Grant threw many troops into battle and
suffered many casualties because the
North could afford it while the South could
not
– Wilderness
– Spotsylvania
– Cold Harbor
• 7,000 in one hour
Sherman in Atlanta
• In late 1864, Sherman
occupied Atlanta
• Confederates cut off
his supply lines
• Mid-November he
burned Atlanta and
marched to the coast
Sherman’s March to the Sea
• Burned Southern
homes, farms, etc.
• Troops lived off of the
land.
• Attempted to break
the will of the South
– (esp. brutal in SC)
Election of 1864
• Lincoln faced opposition from Northerners
tired of the war
– Several important Union victories prior to
election
• Won close victory over George McClellan
• War would continue to victory
The fall of the Confederacy
• President Davis and his government
abandoned Richmond
• Burned it as they were leaving
Surrender
• Grant and Lee met to
arrange the
Confederate
surrender on April 9,
1865 at Appomattox
Court House, Va
• Lincoln insisted on
generous terms
• Men simply paroled
and told to go home
The War Ends
• Now What?
• Lincoln and Congress (Radical
Republicans) argue over how to readmit
Southern states into the Union
The Last Casualty
• Lincoln assassinated
on April 14th, 1865
• Shot while at Ford’s
Theater by John
Wilkes Booth, an
actor and Southern
sympathizer
• Lincoln dies the next morning
• John Wilkes Booth caught in a Virginia
barn 12 days later